Age-related changes on the mechanism to control visual attention

众所周知，当观察者搜索目标时，搜索显示器上的干扰物体会产生干扰效应。这表明搜索显示的配置与IT设备的用户友好性和可访问性有关。适当的接口设计对于阐明与年龄相关的认知功能变化是非常重要的。因此，我们研究了与年龄相关的视觉注意的变化，特别是抑制功能。研究采用了两种方法：视觉搜索任务和问卷调查法。在视觉搜索任务中，使用了与检测目标无关的突发性分心刺激。结果表明，当呈现无关刺激时，老年人的检测任务(d‘)的敏感度降低。这表明，由于注意的外源性捕获，老年人的注意力集中受到发作性分心障碍的影响。在此基础上，采用记忆能力和注意功能问卷对老年人认知功能的主观评价和客观评价之间的关系进行了检验。这项研究中两种不同任务的结果可能是与年龄相关的中央执行功能的恶化。

It is well known that the distracters on search display have an interference effect when the observer searched a target. This indicates that the configuration of search display has relation with the userfriendliness and the accessibility of IT devices. It is very important for appropriate design of interfaces to clarify agerelated changes in cognitive functions. Therefore, we investigated the agerelated changes on visual attention, especially inhibition function. Two approaches were adopted : a visual search task and a questionnaire method. In the visual search task, an onset distracter stimulus which was irrelevant for detecting a target was used. The result showed that a sensitivity of detection task (d') for elderly people decreased when an irrelevant stimulus was presented. This indicated that the focusing of attention became difficult for the elderly people by the onset distracter because of capture of attention exogenously. Furthermore, the relationship between the subjective and the objective evaluation of cognitive function in elderly people were examined by using the questionnaire involving memory capacity and attention function. A possible explanation for the results of both different tasks in this study is the agerelated deterioration of central executive function.